There was a time not long ago when the words "New Brunswick" and "entrepreneur" didn't fit well in the same sentence.

New statistics have put the lie to any notion that the entrepreneurial spirit in this province lags behind the rest of the country.

An analysis of 2006 census numbers by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business shows that New Brunswick has seen a boom in incorporated self-employed entrepreneurs in the past five years, with the increase trailing only the prairies.

Between 2001 and 2006, incorporated self-employment grew by 23.3 per cent in New Brunswick, behind only Alberta's 27.2 per cent and Manitoba's 23.6 per cent.

And that growth is almost equally spread between men and women, the CFIB says.

"Not only have their created their own jobs, but they've created jobs for other people as well," Andreea Bourgeois, the CFIB's director of provincial affairs in New Brunswick, points out.

There are many reasons afoot, Bourgeois says, not the least of which is a proliferation of older, unincorporated businesses that have met with success. As those businesses, many of which were started during a boom period in the 1980s, matured, the owners opted to incorporate and continued to be successful, Bourgeois explains.

Many self-employed people start out unincorporated because it's often easier and cheaper, but often they later incorporate to take advantage of tax breaks and other benefits of incorporation.

"And happily," Bourgeois adds, "this coincided with an improvement in tax policy."

By the 1990s, small-business taxes began a decline that continued until recently in New Brunswick which in turn helped those small businesses to succeed and in turn led to more of them going the route of incorporation.

Modern technology also helped boost the success of New Brunswick entrepreneurs, perhaps even more than the average person might think.

In an age of online meetings and instant communications via cell phones and Blackberries, New Brunswick small business operators no longer have to fly to Toronto or Boston in order to make that big sale.

"They make you so much more effective," Bourgeois notes.

Demographics have also played a role in New Brunswick's boom in incorporated entrepreneurs, since people between the ages of 45 and 64 are most likely to start a business and have already acquired the skills to do so and have developed the ability to know the difference between just plain risky business and recognizing the right kinds of risks.

Some of the same reasons, but many different factors as well, account for what Bourgeois terms a "significant" increase in the number of female entrepreneurs, with those including the lower birth rate and better child care.

A different CFIB study a few years ago looked at several aspects of entrepreneurship and determined that most people take the scary leap into self-employment because they've found a niche they can fill in an area of endeavour that has always interested them.

But also, that study revealed that everyday Canadians' attitudes have changed towards the self-employed.

"Right now, farmers and small-business people have the highest levels of trust among the public in Canada," Bourgeois says, noting that hasn't always been the case.

That means customers nowadays will go out of their way to support a local business.